In the Driver's Seat
by teeki-squared
Summary: Toby decides to take a serious step. Not what you'd expect from the title!
1. Default Chapter

In the Driver's Seat

A Degrassi: The Next Generation fanfic by Teeki-squared

_Overall, suicide is the 11th leading cause of death for all Americans, and is the third leading cause of death for young people aged 15-24.  
Males are more than four times more likely to die from suicide than are females._

  
  


_"Still think you're invisible, Tobes?" --_JT, "Mirror in the Bathroom"

  
  


Author's notes:

Obviously, I did not create Degrassi or any of the characters. Now that we have that out of the way...

  


This story is rated PG 13 because it deals with serious (and cliched, or course) situations. The story will take place over a number of parts that I will hopefully update regularly. Please let me know if you like it.

  


Things you will (hopefully) never see in my Degrassi fics:

Terribly out of character behavior

Scenarios that are completely outside the Degrassi realm (no vampires, for example)

Slash (sorry!)

New major characters. The show has plenty of great characters already; I don't see why so many fic authors feel the need to add new ones.

  


And now, on with the show...er, fic....


	2. To sleep, to avoid a dream

That Thursday was just like the Wednesday and Tuesday before it. Toby Isaacs came home after school, kicked off his shoes and trudged up the stairs. Once again, no one was home. All three of his "parents" were busy with careers and outside interests; Ashley had her boyfriend and all the other things popular people do. JT? Probably hanging out with Spinner and all of Ashley's other friends.

  


He dumped his bag in the corner and moved to the computer. Not the type to leave email unchecked, he quickly brought up his inbox. Empty, same as it had been since he and Kendra had quarreled the week before.

  


_"Are you saying that you don't want to go out with me any more?"_

_"Look, Toby, our relationship was never that serious. I mean, we hung out and did things together, just like you and JT do. And then you went away for the summer and I didn't even hear from you until school started back up. I still want to be your friend, but I don't want to be forced into any labels for our relationship, okay?"_

_"What do you mean, we were never that serious?"_

  


Toby started to open his bag, but quickly stopped. No urge to do homework, he thought glumly to himself. Maybe a nap would refresh him. Off came his glasses, and he slid under the covers. When he awoke, it was morning.

  
  


A Friday not unlike the Thursday before it, except that a whole weekend stretched ahead. Another empty inbox. For a brief moment, Toby seriously considered sending himself an email just to avoid this problem tomorrow. 

  


He sighed. Another nap would do him good, he thought. Unfortunately, sleep would not come easily. He kept remembering.

  


_"Why are you doing this to me?"_

_" I'm not trying to hurt you. I'm just trying to get you to back off a bit. You're expecting too much of this relationship. Can't we just be friends?"_

_"In other words, 'Bye-bye, Toby. See ya around.' I don't get it. What did I do?"_

  


Toby sat up straight and rubbed his temples with his fingers. "Oh, man," he moaned gently. Removing himself from the bed, he found his way to the bathroom and a medicine cabinet. Inside he found exactly what he was looking for, and he quickly downed two Tylenol PM. Sleep would come much easier now, and so he hurried off to bed.

  


The knock seemed to come only seconds later. Ashley entered his room, picking through the mess on her way to the bed. "Toby, it's dinner time, and mom wants you to get up and join the rest of us." Toby ignored her request and buried himself in the blankets. "Oh, come on. Are you sick or something?" Ash grew annoyed with her stepbrother's total lack of response. "I don't have time for this right now. Stay in bed if you want to."

  


She slammed the door behind her.


	3. The view from the cafeteria

(Sorry for the large gaps and other wonkiness in the first part. I'm still scratching my head over this and don't know how to fix it. Haven't given up though!)

  


The next Monday, two grade ten girls were talking inside Degrasssi Community School. Ellie Nash slammed her locker and turned to her friend Ashley Kerwin. "You never did tell me why you bailed on me this weekend."

Ash rolled her eyes. "I was watching my nutty stepbrother all day Saturday . He spent the whole weekend in bed, and Mom was convinced that it could be something serious. We all had to take turns playing nursemaid in case he turned purple or something." She picked her books up and bumped her locker closed. Ashley and Ellie took off down the hallway.

Halfway down the corridor, Ashley nudged her friend and hissed, "There's the little monster now."

Ellie craned her neck and spotted Toby headed their direction from a side hall. He appeared to be watching his feet as he pushed past the crowds going the opposite direction. "He doesn't look sick. Maybe a little pale and unhappy, but that's no reason for you to play his keeper."

"I know. When Mom found out this morning he didn't have a fever, she made him go to school. Toby kept saying he didn't get enough sleep last night and needed to go back to bed. Everyone was a little ticked at him by that point."

Toby passed the girls by without a glance, and Ellie's eyes followed him as he went off the other way. "Maybe he's depressed."

"Right." Ashley sped up, leaving Ellie in front of her English classroom. "What does Toby have to be depressed about?"

  


The bell rang, and students poured into the cafeteria. As the usual beginning of lunch hubbub settled down, Ellie found herself joining Ash and a group of popular kids at one end of the room. As she scanned the room looking for Marco, Ellie spotted Toby, alone at a table near the door. A quick skim of the area showed no trace of any of his friends. Ellie nudged Ashley. "Your brother is sitting by himself again," she whispered.

Ash sighed. "That's nothing new."

Paige Michalchuk looked up from her lunch. "What's up?" she wondered, looking quizzically at the two girls. Ellie's gaze was still on Toby.

"Just Toby. He's gotten to be such a loser sometimes that even his friends won't sit with him."

Paige wrinkled her nose. "Anyone remember that time he joined us at lunch and started talking about wet dreams while we were trying to eat? What was that about?"

The group shared a chuckle of disbelief. Ellie, however, seemed fixated on Toby. She stood up and started walking towards the nearly empty table.

Ashley called to her, "El? Where are you going?"

"I don't like watching people eat by themselves. I did it for a couple years in junior high and I don't wish that on anyone."

Paige spoke up. "Ellie, isn't Marco meeting you here? He won't know where to find you if you go sit with some grade nine students. I'm sure JT and his little friends are on their way to join Ashley's nerdy little stepbrother."

Ellie reluctantly agreed that this was all true. She returned to her seat.

During the entire exchange, Toby never looked up once.


	4. Increasing need and increasing notice

"Where were you, Toby?"

The question startled young Mr. Isaacs. He stopped and looked pathetically at Liberty Van Zandt. "What do you mean?"

Liberty adjusted her glasses. "At lunch time. You said you'd come eat with us. Me and JT waited for you at our usual table outside, but we didn't see you."

Toby brushed past her. "I wasn't hungry."

His friend stared at him, disbelieving. "You're always hungry. If you're not eating, then something's wrong."

"Nothing's wrong. I'm fine." With that, he ducked into the boy's restroom, where he stayed until just before the bell rang.

  


That evening, the telephone rang in the combined Isaacs/Kerwin household. Ashley, sitting on the floor of her bedroom with her friend Terri, reached over and picked up the receiver. "Hello?"

"Is Toby there?"

Ashley sighed. "Hi Liberty. Toby's here, but he's asleep. He's gone straight to bed after school every day for the past week or so."

Liberty returned the sigh. "Is he alright? JT and I are worried about him. He's been avoiding us and he didn't eat lunch today."

Ashley paused for a moment, remembering Ellie's earlier comments on the subject. "Dunno. Something's probably bothering him, but he's not talking about it."

"Well, if he gets up, will you have him call me?"

  


In the next room over, the boy in question was not actually sleeping. He lay flat on his back, staring at the ceiling in his room. The room was too cold, too quiet and not dark enough. It just wasn't a very conducive environment for forgetting your worries.

_"What do you mean, we were never that serious?"_

_"Don't take this so personally. I'm not trying to hurt you."_

_"Come on, Kendra. You tell me you're breaking up with me and then you say you're not trying to hurt me? You might as well stick a dagger in my heart."_

Sometime over the weekend, he had managed to bring the bottle of Tylenol PM into his room with him. Over the previous few days, Toby'd found that the recommended dosage was having no effect on him. He'd been taking four or five capsules in an effort to drift off.

He thought about Liberty's comments earlier in the day. She and JT had missed him at lunch. But what about Kendra? Didn't she usually sit with that group? Maybe she was avoiding him, or maybe she just didn't give a fig whether or not he ate lunch.

_"Can I talk to you?"_

_"I always have time for you, Kendra. What's up?"_

_"This is hard for me to say, but...I think we need to cool it a bit with our relationship."_

_"What?!"_

_"People are calling us girlfriend and boyfriend. Last year I thought that was pretty cool, but this year..."_

_"Are you saying you don't want to go out with me any more?"_

Toby reached for the medicine bottle.


	5. Conversations in absense

Tuesday morning, the first bell rang at Degrassi, signifying the start of a new school day. Liberty looked around her homeroom and noticed the two empty chairs where her friends normally sat. Liberty wasn't surprised that JT had not come to school. He'd gone home the day before looking green, and understandably so–Liberty hadn't liked the look of his lunch that day. But Toby was also absent, so perhaps the two were playing hooky together. 

That last thought made Liberty smile, but she was pretty sure it was not true. It didn't feel right, for one thing. Try as she might, Liberty just could not shake the feeling that something was really not right with Toby.

The bell rang to propel students to their next classes. Not needing the locker time, Liberty started on a detour that took her halfway across the school. She quickly ended up in front of Ashley's locker. Like the previous day, Ashley and Ellie were preparing to walk to class together when Liberty appeared. The two older girls were surprised to see her.

Before either one of them could open their mouth in greeting, Liberty began her prepared statement. "I'm really worried about Toby. Why isn't he at school today?"

Ashley looked at her blankly. "What do you mean, he's not at school today? I saw him leave. He got a call from JT, told Jeff they were walking to school together, and then he left."

Liberty relaxed a little. "JT's not here either. They must have skipped and gone off somewhere." She looked at her watched and winced. "If I'm going to get to class on time, I've got to go now. Thanks for your help."

After Liberty walked away, Ellie watched as Ashley's expression changed from confused to worried. "What is it?"

Ash shook her head slowly. "It's just...Toby and JT always walk to school together. It seems a little odd that JT would call for that. Why ask him if he wanted to do something they always do?"

  


Toby didn't leave any of the girls' minds during the school day. At lunch time both Ashley and Liberty could be seen making a phone call. Ashley quickly hung up without speaking to anyone, but Liberty reached her intended party. A hoarse voice answered the phone. "Hello?"

"JT, is that you?"

"Yeah. Is this Liberty? Why are you calling?"

"Toby's not with you, is he?"

"No, why would he be? I called him this morning to let him know I have food poisoning and wasn't going to make it to school. Last time I talked to him." There was a pause. "If you're looking for Toby, that means he's not at school. What's up with him?"

Liberty sighed. "I don't know. I even talked to his stepsister about it. Sounds like she's worried too."

"Let me know if you find out anything."

  


Liberty reappeared by Ashley's locker shortly after school was dismissed for the day. Ashley was not surprised to see her. "I called JT during lunch, and he's home sick. He hasn't seen Toby all day today." Liberty shifted her backpack from one shoulder to the other as Ash continued to grab her books.

"I called home and no one answered. But I think Toby's there–maybe in bed again. I just hope he's not thinking about doing something stupid." Ashley fretted as she zipped her bag.

"What do you mean?"

The locker slammed shut. "I don't know what's bothering him, but he seems really depressed about something. He might do something like..."

"...Hurt himself," Ellie piped up, joining the pair in the hallway. "I did a report on depression for English class back in grade seven. If someone gets depressed enough, they stop thinking and feeling logically. Sometimes they do things to themselves so they can feel something or to end their own lives." She unconsciously rubbed her forearm as she kept talking. "They feel like no one out there knows how they feel or would care if they disappeared."

Liberty looked shocked for a moment. "Toby wouldn't do that, would he?"

"He would if he didn't think anyone would notice." Ashley had started hurrying toward the main door of school. "Liberty, can you come with me? I want to make sure he's alright, and I think if both of us talk to him, he'll take it better." Ms. Van Zandt nodded and followed.

"I'm coming too," Ellie added as the other two disappeared down the hallway.

  
  


AN: Sorry you had to wait a while for this one! I started writing when I was sick, and now that I'm (almost) better, I have a lot of things that I've been neglecting and needed to catch up on. I'm hoping to get at least one chapter up a week, so this story should be completed by the end of November. Keep a lookout, and thanks for all the positive feedback! ~Teeki


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